


In This Valley Of Dying Stars.

by amorremanet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angelcest, Angels, Azazel is a yellow-eyed fallen angel, Canonical Character Death, Character Death Fix, Community: hc_bingo, Deathfic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Episode: s07e01 Meet the New Boss, Episode: s07e02 Hello Cruel World, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Self-Destruction, Temporary Character Death, Torture, Triggers, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-18
Updated: 2011-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:11:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the warehouse and after the lake, after his apparent death, Castiel finds himself lost and in pain. And privy to some unwanted memories and unexpected company. <a href="http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/11629591266/random-desire-to-fic-something-about-this-brb">Inspired by this gifset on tumblr</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In This Valley Of Dying Stars.

Castiel doesn't know where he wakes up, just that he blinks into awareness and it's decidedly not the bottom of a lake. Wherever he is, it's cold, and it's dark, and he feels nothing beyond the way that it gapes around him. Everything is much too much.

Other sensations hit him slowly, one after another, filtering in with something that's almost like respect for him. Slowly, yes, but they do come around. desire to move, coupled with a feeling heavier than any other burden he's born; something's weighing down his Grace; he's stuck in his body — his vessel — but there's nothing comfortable about it… Over the years, Castiel has gotten used to the corpse that used to be Jimmy Novak's. It's always moved so easily for him. Now, all he wants to do is lie here and sleep for an eternity.

Even though he doesn't know where _here_ is. Even though all he knows of his location is the penetrating chill that goes deep into his bones. And the grit on the ground, which he feels as he rubs his arm into it. And the shades that nuzzle at his back, that he can see through while still being dark.

Everything comes to Cas in fits and starts. His toes wiggle. His fingers twitch. He slides his nude legs against one another, cold skin on cold skin. All his breaths are sighs, heavy and trembling and deep and sick. Both his Grace and his stomach roil, tremble as though he's close to vomiting. Cas rolls his shoulders, shifts his neck around. Stretching out his back takes more effort than Castiel wants to admit to, ever. Should he get the chance to do anything of the sort. And he expects that he won't.

He remembers everything and wishes that he didn't — reciting the ritual's Latin incantation underneath the eclipse, the rush of Purgatory's inhabitants filling his body… He remembers killing all those people. Stumbling into Bobby Singer's home and begging Dean to help him, too weak to stand on his own. He remembers wrestling with everyone he'd taken on, trying to keep his head about him as he went about his work as the new God — but they were so _powerful_ — all of those monsters and their power. All those souls, all their screaming…

Most of them stayed huddled together, afraid of this new place in which they'd found themselves, but others… Others insisted on their own identities. Lenore, the vampire Cas put out of her misery, was the kindest one. Not that that meant much of anything — just that she spoke to him kindly, suggested he let the souls go because it hurt him, because it was dangerous, and not because she wanted freedom.

Though they were older than all the others, the Leviathans weren't that horrible. In a way, Castiel found them somewhat tolerable. Well mannered. Patient. Calm and, while not particularly impressed with him and his actions, not struggling against him like their companions did. They'd waited long enough, albeit in a different sort of prison. A little while longer made no difference to them. They didn't need to cause a fuss because they knew that Castiel's vessel couldn't hold them, that they'd eventually get free.

And they have. Castiel knows that he's failed without needing to be a witness to the current state of things on Earth. He's stopped one enemy and unleashed another, and he can't even help the Winchesters face this one.

Demons reared their heads with the most frequency — they cropped up and cackled, roared with laughter, reached for the outside world, even with his skin acting as a barrier. They burned inside of him. Tried to immolate him, reduce his Grace to cinders. They made every other soul look tame — and Castiel can understand why.

After months of half-truths, deceptions, lies, and mind-games, this is so obvious: they got so excited because an angel had swallowed them. One of their eternal opposites had taken them into himself, trying to channel their power. An _angel_ had allied himself with one of their own, double-crossed Crowley in the end, and used their dry, twisted, black, and violent souls to make himself a monster. Why wouldn't they take the chance to get smug, to show off?

Azazel wasn't cruel or particularly violent; he merely spoke up so he could chuckle. As though the entire thing was the world's greatest joke. When he did use words, all he said was, _You're so much like our brother, little one. So much like The Morningstar. It's so reassuring, actually — you might not enjoy the truth, but it is what it is. Embrace your darkness; it can only help you._

Ruby and Lilith cawed at Cas about how far the mighty had fallen. Held what he'd done over him — _didn't you spend months getting off on how you were so much better than I was_ , Ruby snapped at him. _Well, guess what, Blue Eyes? We're guilty of the same damn things now — the only difference is that Dean drank your jizz and not your blood_. Lilith mostly laughed, a shrill, ear-splitting sound. Eventually, she hissed, _who's a precious-wecious little would-be usurper? Who's gotten his saintly hands all bloodied up? Why, Castiel, I think it's you!_

And the two of them were loud, their voices grating, nauseating, horrid. But the torture master was the worst of all.

Alastair said nothing, he only scratched. Clawed at Castiel's Grace and his insides and fought harder than anyone else to take control of the vessel. Any time that Castiel moved, any time that he did anything, he fought a war to make sure that _he_ was the one who shifted his balance from one foot to the other, who flexed his muscles, who took steps in any direction — and, the whole time, Cas wrestled with Alastair, who had a stronger presence than anyone else without needing to open his mouth. It might've been his way, at one point, but Alastair didn't need to speak. It was obvious what he wanted to do.

Castiel felt it every time he looked at Dean, alien desires that curled like smoke around the dark corners of his imagination, that Cas could hear as clearly as he would've if Alastair had been whispering in his ear: _Look at that beautiful boy… Oh, please, Angel, just let me off the leash for a little while. Hasn't he hurt you? Don't you want to hurt him back? You're too weak to do it, so let me… All I need is a piece of broken glass. Not quite as nice as a razor, but I can improvise._

_How far did you get with him, Angel? Did he ever let you put his dick in your mouth? Did he fuck you, Castiel? Did you fuck him? Oh, yes… There's the memory of it, isn't there — It's so precious how you actually think that you've forgotten who you 'used to be.' That you actually think this makes you any different, on any kind of important level. Maybe you're more powerful, for the time being, but there's nothing different about you whatsoever. At least, not anything that actually makes you Castiel, Angel of Thursdays._

_You still remember exactly how it felt when he took you on that sofa, deflowered you because you might've died… You remember the warmth of his skin under your fingers, how he trembled every time he thought that he could lose you, how he just ignored you for that entire year while he was at that slut's house… He knew you — Biblically, closer than anyone could possibly know a person — but he couldn't recognize how you kept watch over him. Say, Cas, just out of curiosity: did Dean ever tell you that he loved you?_

_Well, that's all bullshit, you know. Every word he said to that effect. I know those green eyes of are ever-so-enticing, but Dean Winchester doesn't have it in him to love anybody. Not even his little brother. Not anymore. Oh, sure, he can pretend with the best of them — he's such a wonderful little actor, don't you think — but there's not an ounce of love left in that perfect body of his. He's a monster, now, deep in his heart. Self-loathing, mutated, violent and lost… If you hadn't stuck your interfering, feathered nose into our lives, then I would've made him into the greatest of demon-kind. A better Boy King than little Sammy ever could've been._

_He truly is my greatest success. Even if you stole him away before our time was up._

_…By the way, Angel? I fucked him, too, you know. I made him scream. I in ways that you can never understand, you simpering, sanctimonious prick. I bet that's really why you've gone and done all this. Why you took us all in, why you've violated yourself like this… You're so broken, barely a shadow of yourself, and you never really cared about stopping your Apocalypse-happy brothers, did you? The good Cas, the righteous Cas, Castiel: Crusader for The Right Thing? All fictions you've invented to make yourself feel better about just how fractured, how human, you really are._

_But you can't fool me. No one can. Breaking psyches apart is my specialty, remember. That boy left you in smithereens, Cas, and you just needed that revenge. Tell me: was it everything that you expected? Has it been fun?_

Alastair didn't need to use those words exactly for Castiel to understand him. The growling and the snarls were enough. Were indication that, perhaps, they were more similar than Cas wanted to admit.

Before he tore up Senator Michelle Walker's campaign office, Cas wound up in one of these fits with Alastair — He wants to blame the more powerful things he swallowed, the more terrifying ones… but he doesn't know that he can. He saw the destruction that he left behind. The necks he snapped or hacked open, the backs he broken and the limbs he ripped off, the blood — all the blood… Floods of thick red. Stains all over his hands, his trenchcoat. So much blood that he thought the place could never be clean again.

And when he came around in that devastation, saw the blight he'd wreaked… His hands shook. His knees wobbled beneath him. And his courage wavered more strongly than it had since he'd completed the ritual — because everywhere he looked, Cas saw Dean's face. Dean's soul, as bloodied and massacred as when he pulled it out of Hell — every corpse looked profaned, defiled. As mutilated as Castiel felt, as he still feels. When he fell into Bobby's kitchen, Cas had to force himself to look Dean in the eyes.

Because looking at him reminded Cas of the campaign office. Because the campaign office reminded him of what Alastair had done to Dean in Hell. Because, even if Alastair had control of the vessel, he only had it due to Castiel's failure, due to Castiel's will crumbling and his resolve failing him. Because Cas unleashed something so much worse than anything Alastair had ever done, and there he was, asking Dean to help him again. For the thousandth time. After pushing Dean away so fiercely. When Cas knew it was the last thing that he deserved.

_There wasn't any purpose to that scene, was there, Angel?_ — even here, in this hollow wherever-Cas-is, he can hear Alastair's gnarled, crackling whisper, his self-superior lisp. Even here, it scrapes against his ears, makes his Grace shiver — _You know, every time that I ripped Dean apart, I had a higher cause to serve… Religious obligations, precious. I'm sure a Yahwist sycophant such as yourself can understand. …but was there really any reason for you to kill all those people? To make such a mess out of everything? If only I could've had you under my instruction…_

These memories plague Cas as his body wakes up, as he gains more awareness of the fact that he exists again. That he _shouldn't_ exist — shouldn't feel his chest rise and fall with these trembling breaths — but that, wherever he is, he's _alive_. His Grace sinks, takes his (takes Jimmy's?) heart down into the pit of Cas's stomach… He shivers, even as his eyes burn with tears. Curling in on himself — bringing his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his middle, aching the whole time, with every motion, everything that moves throbbing and begging Castiel to stop, to leave well enough alone and just be still.

Cas's wings are the last thing that he feels, and it strikes him as so odd. So out of place when he's in this body. But they stretch out behind him now, as though he's in his true form. They rustle their feathers and crack their joints and attempt to get re-accustomed to moving. Trying to shift his head, trying to turn so he can look at them, Castiel experiences one thing only: _pain_. His nerves flare up with it. He groans — his entire body groans with him — every muscle twists and jerks around and _burns_.

He thought he was in no danger from the demons, that they wouldn't destroy him from the inside out. But this pain… Castiel can't be certain about this pain… His jaw wobbles back to life, lips quivering, teeth chattering. Something jolts through his entire body, down his spine. He twitches, convulses, jerks so that his knees slam against his heart… And maybe, Cas thinks, he won't stay alive for long. He exists, and he shouldn't, and maybe he'll die soon, stay that way, which is so much less horror and punishment than he deserves.

Even when he relents, shuts his eyes and slams his forehead back into his arm and slips it onto the ground, his body protests the attempt at moving. His Grace writhes. Spasms. And he doesn't need to catch a glimpse of them to know how mangled they've become: as his wings shuffle around, feathers fall out, drift down, ghost light caresses over his shoulder-blades. If they were just exhausted with disuse, then they'd have stopped cracking by now — he would've been able to work out the kinks quickly, then have them be in perfect working order.

He imagines how they must look, in lieu of being able to see them… Cas pictures the bones and joints revealing themselves. Huge clumps of black plumage missing. Even more sections of it toppling to the ground as though some invisible hand's ripped them from their homes. And that _crack!_ of pain, the shiver in his back as he tries to make these dried out, twisted things work again.

He's not sure how long he spends alone, but soon enough, someone whispers behind him. Fingers trace over the curve of his spine, up his wings. They thread through his feathers as the someone whispers prayers Cas feels like he hasn't heard in ages, a beautiful mix of Hebrew and Enochian, in a voice he never thought he'd hear again — here, an incantation for healing; there, one for protection; _Father, though we are not worthy to receive Your Grace, look not upon our failings but upon our faith in You. Remember our sacrifices and deliver this creature, Your son—_

"Stop, Gabriel," he hisses, gasping from the tremors that speaking sends through his torso. "Stop… It isn't that I'm unappreciative. But I deserve this pain. I deserve more. Don't try to spare me any of it."

Gabriel huffs, _sighs_ as though he's just been asked to give up sweets and trashy television. Without seeing his face, Castiel can guess that the former archangel is rolling his eyes, and pouting. His (hypothetical) slouch comes through in how he says, "bullshit, little brother. _Bullshit_."

Castiel tries pointing out that he's done terrible things — killed their brothers, killed _humans_ (humans who'd sinned, yes, but still… weak, defenseless little humans), gotten prideful to a degree unseen since Lucifer's rebellion. But Gabriel refuses to let up, refuses to stop muttering his prayers or tending to Castiel's wings. As though it helps him make his point that Castiel deserves forgiveness, Gabriel slides one hand up and down Castiel's wing. Delicately slips his fingers around the feathers. Caresses every surface, which (in turn) makes Castiel's shivers calm themselves, turn more pleasant (not by much, but by enough to stop being painful) — and then, Gabriel tugs a single feather out.

Gabriel chuckles when this makes Castiel whine. And he insists, in a bone-dry voice, "You know how many of us have died, Cas? Thousands. _Thousands_ of our brothers and sisters have bit the big one since 2008, whether it was the Apocalypse or civil war or anything else. …You know how many of us have wound up here? _Four_ , and that figure includes you."

"Who else is here?" Castiel sighs and nuzzles against his own arm, currently serving as an impromptu pillow. As much as he wants to insist that Gabriel leave his wings alone, leave him to his self-flagellating behavior, he can't deny that this feels nice. There's a warmth spreading out from his ribcage, now — small, wavering. Cas worries that anything could extinguish it and leave him feeling frozen over again. But as Gabriel does is work, the summery comfort grows stronger. Keeps spreading. And Castiel asks again, "who else is here?"

Gabriel flicks a few loose feathers out. "Anna was here for a while before I showed up," he explained, half-dreamily. "Then it was just us… then Balthazar showed up — and, jeez, you want to tell me what happened to _him_?"

Cas's eyes blink, heavy with sleep and sliding out of focus, and he supposes that he has no idea what Gabriel means. "He died because I killed him," Cas mutters. "But am I correct in assuming that you have something else in mind?"

As it turns out, Castiel is completely right: "Well, he _looked_ the same as ever when he rolled in here," Gabriel snickers. "But, me? I was over here, expecting him to get all choir boy-righteous and _blah blah, how could you abandon us_ , _yadda yadda, what kind of archangel are you anyway_ on me and what does he do instead, huh? Starts talking about how he had an idea about this threesome once, except it involved you being passed out drunk on a motel bed so we could use that dirty coat of yours as an impromptu wrist-restraint."

Seemingly out of nowhere, Castiel is hit with a sudden awareness of how naked he is. How vulnerable. And he has no idea where his trenchcoat's gotten off to — but he misses it. All he wants is to curl up in it, lose himself in its familiar, unwashed stench.

Despite this, he tries to chuckle, because he recognizes that he is supposed to find this anecdote amusing… But the noise that comes out is a crack. A cough. He makes another attempt, and for the trouble, he gets is a fit of hacking — that is, until he finds Gabriel seated next to him, finds his head coaxed up into Gabriel's lap. Everything seems warmer now, with this closeness, with Gabriel's wings stretching out to form a shield around them.

Threading his fingers through Castiel's hair, now, Gabriel whispers, "you're safe here, kid — we all are. And when you're feeling up to it, there's someone else who wants to see you. He's got something you'll probably want to hear, and some work we can finally get started on, now that you're here."

Although it makes him ache to do so, Castiel turns his head, cranes his neck so he can properly blink up at Gabriel, at his older brother's peaceful smirk and hazel eyes. "Who would want to see me?" he sighs. "After what I did? What I've become…?"

Gabriel's smirk becomes more of a smile. The glint that flashes across his eyes seems reassuring, rather than mischievous. " _Dad_ , Castiel," he says, his voice even and barely loud enough for Cas to hear. "Our Father wants to see you — He said to tell you that He's heard your prayers and that, as long as you still want it, it's never too late to fix things. Or to find redemption. And like I said: He has work for us."

Cas can't deny that this sounds better than everything he's heard in ages. But, first, he nuzzles at Gabriel's thigh. Tries to find a comfortable position. Because he kept poison in his vessel for far too long. Resisted things that angels were never meant to deal with — and before he does anything else, Castiel wants to sleep. He deserves that much.


End file.
